Well, despite my optimism on January 24, 2022, I wasn't quite ready for spring. Long story short, after replacing the hose clamp on the coolant tank, I should have bled the air out of the system. I didn't and the first long drive in warm weather (April 10th, about 80 degrees outside), left my daughter and me on the side of the road after the car overheated.
When I went to bleed the air from the radiator in the nose of the car, the bleed screw broke off (the threaded collar the bleed screw threads into simply sheared off with the bleed screw, actually when I turned it counterclockwise to open the bleed screw). The radiator is 35 years old, so I decided to replace it. Got a CSF all-aluminum model, purchased from Midwest Bayless for a total of $426 with taxes, shipping and a new bleed screw. Swapped the new radiator in yesterday. It was relatively uneventful, except for the lower portion of the front spoiler. The mounting points had been damaged previously, so it didn't have the original bolts, plus the spoiler just was a tiny fraction of an inch from aligning with the mounting points. I managed to get it back on, but will revisit that issue later.
I took the car out for a drive afterwards, and I couldn't get it up to temperature. It was at night with an ambient temperature of about 35 degrees, and after 15 minutes of driving, the temp gauge was still reading about 140 degrees (180-190 is normal temp after warm-up). I still need to bleed the air in the radiator again, but the car showed no signs of overheating. We will see on a warm day, though.
My other concern is corrosion on the front of the coolant pipes that run under the car from the engine to the radiator. I didn't pull the rear hoses off the aft end of the pipes, nor did I pull the driver's side radiator hose on the front. But, the passenger side front of the pipe had a fair amount of corrosion.
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The coolant that had been running in the system for the past several months was still clear & relatively clean. And I have seen photos of much worse corrosion in these pipes. I will simply need to flush the system regularly until someday I replace those pipes. The problem with the pipes is that they run inside a protective box that is welded to the underside of the floor pan, so it is a pretty big job to swap the pipes.
Here are some photos of the sheared off bleed screw, plus the replacement CSF radiator (looks to be of very high quality).
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